Kudos to EcoJustice students

A fundamental role of Canadian schooling is to develop young citizens. Do we intend to develop citizens who are literate, culturally equipped with rich knowledges from our past, and prepared for active engagement in continuous improvement of our society, or do we aim for adults who have been numbed to the social issues in everyday life and passively accept the decisions and policy actions of others?

The Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools Division’s mission statement announces a commitment to inspire its students to serve others and make the world a better place. Additionally, its published vision and “Belief Statements” commit the division to a community in which young citizens are “reaching out to transform the world,” endowed with a sense of hope.

We have also heard Pope Francis’s many calls to action to protect the environment, and his statement on the rights of all people to clean, safe water.

These inspiring messages clearly support the actions of students who joined a public gathering in support of the water protectors at Standing Rock. Where else would students of a course called EcoJustice learn about the ways citizens take action for environmental justice?

The students deserve applause and support for speaking from their hearts. Such behaviours provide all of us with a sense of hope. A choice for passive and alienated citizenship is alarming given the almost terrifying realities that we are presented daily in news coverage.

Media taking sides

It is becoming the norm for modern journalists such as Cam Fuller to take shots at anything they disagree with, and lay blame on a conservative or more traditional politician.

Fuller’s remark about the “Trump effect” being about haters is now the new catchword for anything with which the left disagrees. It has become the mandate for modern media to sanitize and cheer lead for liberal politicians. Nothing good can be said about anything on the right by journalists, who relish the role of being influencers and not informers. Freedom of the press seems to be slanted in only one direction.

I think the job of a free press is to expose corruption, regardless of political, religious or secular standing. The truth was the ultimate goal in bringing forward for public scrutiny any shady or even criminal activity by progressive, liberal or conservative politician, thus forcing a corrective action and preserving integrity in our political and social systems.

Instead, our modern media simply pick sides. The public must reclaim the inherent right of free choice, dialogue and mutual respect for everyone in society instead of labelling a contrary opinion as “hate.”

Cliff Pyle, Saskatoon

Hope Trump knows better

Many good people eschew politics because as a politician, the only way you can keep your job is to get elected every four years. They do not like what they sometimes have to do in order to get elected.

In the case of Donald Trump, I hope that a lot of the things he did and said were more to get elected than anything else. Now that he has been elected, I hope he knows better than to do what he talked about doing.

Jack Driedger, Saskatoon

Giving away profits

In 2012, the province’s commercial Crown corporations — SaskTel, SaskPower, SaskEnergy, SGI, Saskatchewan Gaming Corp. and ISC — earned $524.9 million in profits and returned $325.5 million in dividends to government coffers.

From 1987 to 2011 the same group of Crowns (minus Sask. Gaming) earned $6.771 billion, with $4.852 billion going to general revenue.

Premier Brad Wall’s proposal to sell up to 49 per cent of any Crown means that 49 per cent of their dividends would then go into the hands of private investors. This shortfall would have to be made up by you and me. Selling 49 per cent of a Crown and still calling it a public utility is a lot like saying one is “a little bit pregnant.”

When Wall is asked to come clean on his privatization plans, all he does is “deny, deny, deny.”

The Saskatchewan Party government has bungled the provincial budget, and cut taxes for the rich to appease its friends. It has robbed the Crowns of their earnings, thus forcing them to increase rates for consumers. Now it wants to give away the profit making Crowns to its friends.

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